Spain has serious questions to answer on their fishing fleet reported Kw power

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OCEANA fears that a blind eye is being turned to illegal fishing in a Balearic marine park, due to the sporadic nature of the park's board meetings.

Since the last regional elections, the Board of Trustees of the Cabrera National Park should have met ten times, but has only done so on three occasions. According to the conservation organisation, this "hampers the control and monitoring of the decisions taken and the prevention of illegal fishing activities that affect the park".

Oceana has therefore requested the convening, without further delay, of the meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Cabrera National Park which was scheduled for December 2013. The international marine conservation organisation considers essential the rigorous holding of the quarterly meetings of the Board of Trustees, given the delicate situation of the park, which has seen its budget reduced by 80% and has witnessed cases of poaching in areas of maximum protection.

The regulations of the Board of Trustees specify that its members must meet at least four times a year, so since the last regional elections, in May 2011, ten meetings should have taken place. However, since the Regional Minister of the Environment, Biel Company, replaced its chairman, this body has met only three times. The frequency with which it has met does not even respect that established by Royal Decree 1760/1998, which requires a minimum of two meetings per year.

"The board must respect its own rules and hold these meetings, which are essential to ensure compliance with regulations affecting the park and to improve management," points out Xavier Pastor, Executive Director of Oceana in Europe. "Without the statutory periodic meetings, the trustees cannot closely monitor the impact of budget cuts or control the illegal activities within the park, or the many cases of illegal fishing in the bordering waters."

One of the reasons that has been given to explain the delay in convening the meeting is the fact that the 2014 Plan of Activities for the park has not been completed. Far from being a justification, this is evidence of poor management and is repeated every year, sometimes taking up to nearly six months, say Oceana. As a representative of conservation organisations on the Board of Trustees, Oceana believes that there is hardly need to add the cancellation of board meetings to the consequences deriving from the absence of a Plan of Activities.

The Cook Report : Spanish Pirates , from the early 1990's BUT the Spanish are still landing unchecked in the UK and Ireland , as soon as they come in to land the fishery officers disappear , as soon as the lorries go they re-appear....